I'm your host, Jester. I've been an EVE Online player for about six years. One of my four mains is Ripard Teg, pictured at left. Sadly, I've succumbed to "bittervet" disease, but I'm wandering the New Eden landscape (and from time to time, the MMO landscape) in search of a cure.You can follow along, if you want...

Thursday, October 17, 2013

Quote of the Week: Maximum protest size

As long as I'm in the mood to talk about groups of discontented players, let's talk about one more: the Council of Planetary Management (CPM), the DUST 514 equivalent of the CSM.

You think we're having problems...

This is a group that was announced with great fanfare by Hilmar himself at Fanfest, intended to model the successful CSM program in CCP's new product. Headlined by CSM7 member Hans Jagerblitzen and a really impressive array of DUST 514 stand-outs, I was more or less uniformly impressed by this group when I met them face to face the Saturday after Fanfest. These are people that were hugely passionate about their game, and getting DUST 514 off to a good start.

When he was on CSM7, I teased and heckled and persuaded Hans to write periodic updates (the precursor to my own weekly updates). And he continued that process -- though of course not weekly -- once he was on the CPM. You can read them on his blog. There are eight of them so far, the most recent one just yesterday. And taken as a group, they paint a very bleak picture of CPM-CCP cooperation over the last four months... or lack thereof. The first update back in June is upbeat and optimistic, yet realistic and pragmatic, with lots of plans, ideas, concerns, and initiatives for the future. The most recent one... wellllll... not so much. The CPM is clearly frustrated as hell, angry, and are reflecting the mood of the DUST player base, which is... not ideal. "The time has passed for the CPM to take verbal assurances at face value," Hans says flatly in the latest update.

This is Hans we're talking about here, who was arguably the most cheerful and diplomatic member of CSM7 after Trebor. Yes, even when he was going after me. Other members of the CPM are keeping their statements equallyflat.

So it was amusing today to hear about him teasing CCP Dolan (quoted with permission and edited slightly)...

Your only saving grace is that there's no monuments to shoot in Dust so you're safe there.
Maximum protest size: 32
(devil)

That made me literally laugh out loud. Nice one, Hans. ;-)

Anyway, in his update Hans talks about an upcoming meeting between the new DUST 514 Executive Producer CCP Rouge and the CPM to find a path forward. I do hope very much that CCP takes the CPM's concerns seriously! And hell yes, I'm biased. The more seriously CCP takes the CPM, the better that is for the CSM as well. Go over and read Hans's eight update posts if you want to catch up with what they've been up to.

5 comments:

Watch what they do, not what they say. Nothing from the summer of rage 2 years ago, and that quote is from Hilmar himself no less, has stuck with me more than that sentiment so plainly expressed.

The only people left still cheerleading CCP on, whether in EVE or Dust, are those wilfully blind or utterly and interminably stupid. We've watched what they've done and compared it to what they have said. There's no "there" there. Upper management in Iceland has got to be in panic mode. Maybe people aren't unsubbing in droves, but neither are new players lining up to crash the gates. And that, after all, is what the NEX Store's micro(lol)transactions and Dust's impending explosive popularity was meant to achieve.

Hans set the bar for remote CSM participation. Props to (I forget) whoever yielded their Iceland slot to Hans. Re: your earlier post, whoever participated well remotely should have priority.

Future 10 Year celebrations. 10 Years of CSM. I don't know before Mynxee, but could be very useful to pull in old reps, even if they aren't currently active.I hope CCP would prioritise those who made a difference, especially if they kicked CCP in the teeth. EVE is Harsh, even for CCP.

1. A significant number of player groups who's membership are emotionally or financially invested in DUST, and can organise the players. Not impossible if the leadership is suitably invested.

2. A reasonably high PCU and common social area for all players, with a clear target to protest 'against'. The forums and local would be two methods, although its unlikely that either will be seen by a significant proportion of the player-base due to the default input methods on the hardware.

3. A lack of competition in the marketplace. This would be problematic with both large multi-player shooter franchises releasing their updates in the next few weeks. Lets just say I don't expect the DUST PCU to go up significantly, or ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) to look that healthy, over the next few months.

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